Today I write to people I deeply love – Southern Baptists and our International Mission Board missionaries.
To our missionary brothers and sisters: Many of you are making the prayerful decision to retire from ministries built around people you love and places you call home. Though my voice is only one voice among millions of Southern Baptists, I speak for many when I say, “I’m praying for God to grant you His peace and His provision in powerful ways as you follow His leading.” We know that any retirement carries the grief of departure and questions about the future.
I’ve been privileged to know many of you through my seminary work and my IMB employment – and you’re some of the godliest, most prayerful people I’ve ever met. Many of you have a passion for evangelism and disciplemaking that I have seldom seen in others. While I weep with you as say “good-byes,” your Great Commission commitment and fervor also give me hope for the North American church. We need a shot of your passion, and I look forward to seeing what God might do on our continent through people like you:
- believers who realize that church is not first about them
- leaders who know how to move a conversation easily into a gospel presentation
- cross-cultural evangelists who will go out of their way to find internationals living in the shadow of a church’s steeple
- church planters who can help us plant new churches among ethnic groups
- gospel proclaimers who’ve already crossed language barriers to speak to people groups in North America
- long-term followers of Jesus who can invest in the next generation committed to reaching the nations.
If you have sensed God’s leading to return to the States, please know that we need you. Thus, I also pray another prayer for you: that God will help you to love the North American church. You come home to churches that aren’t always healthy. We struggle with doing evangelism, and we need work on making disciples. We spend more money on buildings than you can fathom. I suspect it would be easy for you to get frustrated with our churches, but I pray that won’t be the case. I pray you’ll love our churches with the same kind of love Paul expressed for the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 16:24) – a church that he also described as deeply flawed. I want you to love us because we desperately need your fire, your persistence, and your wisdom.
Please also be patient with us. It was a trusted field worker who reminded me that most of us cannot fully understand what retirement means to you. We think only that you’re “coming home,” not understanding that “home” for you may be more elusive than ever. We won’t always know the best way to walk with you, but we want to try.
To my Southern Baptist friends on this side of the oceans: We’re a denomination with a renewed passion for church planting and church revitalization. I see more excitement among young leaders than I’ve ever seen. At the same time, our numbers don’t yet reflect a renewed commitment to evangelism. Many of our churches are, in fact, inwardly focused. We talk the Great Commission more than we do the Great Commission. That’s where our retiring missionaries can help us, for they’ve lived with a laser beam focus on reaching the lost and planting churches. We need them in our congregations. We need them in our leadership. We need them as our pastors and staff members. We need them telling the global story in our worship centers, our classes, and our homes.
I’m grateful Southern Baptists have rallied to offer these retirees housing, automobiles, employment, etc., in conjunction with the IMB’s transition team. We must continue to take these steps over the next several months as retirees return. On the other hand, if we meet all these needs without capturing a missionary’s brokenness over lostness, we will not have adequately honored our retiring brothers and sisters. More importantly, we will not be adequately following Jesus.
I’m praying that God will, in the mystery of His ways we don’t always understand, recharge our people – beginning with me – in these days of transition. I’m praying that we’ll reach the nations among us and around the world.
Thank you, Dr. Lawless, for a timely word of encouragement. Our family appreciates your voice and example of servant leadership in the SBC and IMB!
God bless you and your family, Laura.
Thank you for words like these, they are a balm to a heart being stretched in faith. May God be known and made know wherever we are.
God bless, Leanne.
Thank you Dr. Lawless for the words of encouragement. Certainly your words help us, and Southern Baptist, to have a better perspective of the IMB times. It is not easy days for us Ms, but we have assurance that God in His sovereignty is allowing this wave of Ms to come home for a good reason of His.
God bless you, Alfredo.
Maybe, just maybe, this is God’s way of waking up the dormant American Church!
God bless, Bruce.
Thank you, thank you. I will use your open letter as I continue to share with others our understanding of what is going on and you have said it so much better than I could. Paul Eaton, Emeritus, IMB
Thank you for your service, Paul.
And how about those of us who have chosen to continue in Kingdom Work here overseas? Don’t forget us and the pain and grieving and uncertainty we are dealing with. The whole IMB system is in disarray and it is causing all sorts of stress. For example 4 of 5 of our supervisors are taking the VRI. That leaves a huge unknown as to who will be our strategy supervisors. What approach will they take. We all know well about the sovereignty of God and that His will is clearly that the Good News is proclaimed in deed and word. Just don’t forget those of us who remain.
I agree. In a previous post (https://chucklawless.com/2015/09/12-ways-to-assist-returning-southern-baptist-missionaries/), I encouraged folks to pray for all missionaries:
Pray again for all of our missionaries. Even those who remain on the field will be saying “good-byes” to mentors, leaders, friends, “aunts,” and “uncles.” They usually understand that heartache because of the nature of their work, but the large scale of these decisions will likely compound the anguish.
Praying for God’s grace for all His servants on the field.
Dr. Chuck! Thanks for this balance answer to the denominational changes. Appreciate you!
Thanks, Jack.
Thank you for understanding and for encouraging us. It’s a time to lament and a time to hope.
God bless, Jennie.
May our churches bless these returning soldiers, and may this army of selfless servants ignite a contagious passion and outward focus in a sometimes too-comfortable, me-centric church.
Chuck, I’ve always known you as the adroit thought leader; it’s your heart I appreciate most!
Blessings, Jeffrey. Thanks.
I wonder if the reason God has moved them back to the America is because we as a country need them.
Thanks, Rebecca.
That was exactly my thought!
Thanks, Amy.
Your words have stirred hope in my heart for the ?SNC I attend! We need men and women who will teach us to be self-less! We’ve been asleep to long! Maybe our Lord is bringing evangelism back to America! That is my prayer!
God bless, Joney.
Good perspective! I’m an evangelist that travels around the world and across the US, giving “Compassionate Evangelism Training” on personal evangelism, that every believer can do. I’d like to talk with you, maybe God will use me to help all believers to learn to share the gospel with the people that they know. Steve coon
Thanks, Steve.
God sometimes speaks in ways that we don’t understand…
We may see “the return” as something negative, but I see it as something positive, in that “the nations are coming to us” in the USA.
What a better greeting than from someone who “has been there” or “seen that”?
We as Americans need to be evangelized….we have lost our passion for the LORD.
What if GOD wanted you to return?
Our greatest gift to the LORD is to “obey”.
Thanks, Sabrina.
Dr. Chuck. Thanks for this great word.
Blessings, brother.